Vii Introduction Until Relatively Recently Not Many Historians, Either

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Vii Introduction Until Relatively Recently Not Many Historians, Either vii Introduction Until relatively recently not many historians, either sacred or profane, have emerged from within the ranks of the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition. The 'spendid isolation' of such volumes as the Hutterite Chronicle and the Martyrs' Mirror only serve to accentuate this fact. Aside from the American Mennonites associated primarily with Goshen College and its affiliated Biblical Seminary in more recent years, only the Dutch Mennonites have a historical tradition of some note. Among the Mennonite Brethren there is - leaving the present generation out of consideration- only one historian worthy of the name: the teacher-theologian Peter Martin Friesen. He was a man of one book, a book twenty-five years in the making. That book was commissioned ·soon after the birth of the movement and, when it appeared, fulfilled much the same function as the other two mentioned above: it was an attempt to explain and justify a new Mennonite church as well as to recount the stories of its 'martyrs'. Yet there is a difference. The first two were attempts to justify the Anabaptist-Mennonite movement against the aspersion of the enemy without; Friesen's study wished to justify the existence of the Mennonite Brethren Church to the enemy within - the larger Mennonite society in Russia from which it emerged. When Friesen completed the book in 1911 he had no way of knowing what the future held in store for the Mennonites of Russia. He could not know that the Russian Revolution - a mere six years away - together with the subsequent Mennonite emigration and the closing of the Russian archives to Western scholars (hiding what documentary evidence had not been destroyed during the revolutionary turmoil and subsequent dislocation of thousands of Mennonites) would place his book in a unique position. For while the Hutterite Chronicle and the Martyrs' Mirror have, over the years, been supplemented with the volumes of the Quellen zur Geschichte der Taeufer as well as other collections of source materials and a growing number of scholarly monographs based upon viii archival research in Europe, the corrections and further studies that Friesen himseH called for in the introduction to his history have been made very difficult, if not completely impossible. Thus all studies of the Russian Mennonites - and especially those relating to the Mennonite Brethren - must rely heavily on Friesen. Having said this, one feels compelled to ask why the break with the larger Mennonite community in Russia did not evoke a counter-response to Friesen, indeed, why so few people have concerned themselves with the study of the event at all. It is even doubtful that Friesen would have written on the subject had he not initially been commissioned to do so by the fledgling M B Church. Have Mennonites, until the very recent past, not been interested in their own history? Have they perhaps been afraid to look at that past for fear that it might rattle some of their pet assumptions about themselves? Friesen thought so. And so does David Rempel, the best contemporary authority on the Mennonite experience in Russia, who remarked in a letter to the editor of this volume: "My general acquaintanceship with Russian Mennonite writings on any important aspect of their long sojourn in that empire, and my experience in practice with different groups of members of our brotherhood on somewhat controversial issues of our life in that country, have unfortunately led me to the conclusion that too many of our people prefer to hear or to read about that experience not so much as the event actually occurred but as they wished to have it happen." Aside from this desire to believe, perhaps even determination to believe, pious myths about our past rather than confront the real story, there is one other reason for this phenomenon that comes to mind. With the exception of those who, like the Dutch, have remained in the land of their birth, Mennonites have, nearly the world over, been a pilgrim people in search of the promised land. This is especially true of those who left the Netherlands for Prussia and Poland during the years of persecution following the· Reformation. Concerned primarily to protect life and limb by avoiding the snare of the heresy hunter - and in the process eke out an existence - they hardly had either the time or the opportunity, never mind the interest, to reflect, ix profoundly or otherwise, upon the meaning of their pilgrimage. Never far removed from persecution during the first two hundred years of their existence, they kept a low profile and eventually came to be known as the 'quiet in the land', a description we used to be proud of. And because they were not overly eager to be educated in the schools of their persecutors, they developed an antipathy toward education generally and tended, unlike the leaders of the original movement, not to produce educated leaders. In 1789 these Mennonites began all over again, this time in Russia. They repeated that experience in Canada and the United States in the 1870s, the 1920s and the 1940s. Still others have repeated it in South America and more recently in Germany. There was thus little leisure in between to develop a strong sense of historical continuity when discontinuity and hardship appeared to be the order of the day. Nevertheless, the Russian Mennonites did develop their own school system from which, in the second half of the nineteenth century, a number of exceptional students emerged who continued their studies abroad, either in the universities of Germany or Switzerland. However, the Russian Mennonite schools, to which these students more often than not returned to teach after their stay abroad, usually served practical rather than philosophical ends. Under these conditions, had the M B Church not commissioned Friesen to write his history not even he would have shouldered the task. Given the intellectual climate among the Russian Mennonites, then, Friesen's study is all the more remarkable, written as it was under very adverse conditions. Initially, Friesen was concerned - as were those who commissioned the study - to trace the origins and growth of the M B Church. As the project grew, however, he broadened the scope of his study to include the whole of Russian Mennonitism. Even so, the original preoccupation with origins remained a primary focus. For the historian, the search for origins is always problematical, for it tends to give him tunnel vision. Much as the sands in an hourglass must filter through a narrow passageway in order to measure time, the search for origins all too often becomes the focus of the study through which every other event is X seen. Neither the history before nor the history after that event is seen on its own terms. Such a search can, and in P.M. Friesen does, have a distorting effect upon the interpretation of the evidence. The essays included in this volume were originally written for and presented at the P.M. Friesen Symposium held in Fresno on May 4-6, 1978, under the auspices of the Center for Mennonite Brethren Studies and the Mennonite Brethren Biblical Seminary to mark the publication of the translation of Friesen's history. They therefore quite naturally center around that work and the issues mentioned above: the setting of the historical events in Russia; the problem of origins; some of the salient issues raised by the book; and the historian himself. The first section was originally to have contained two essays: one by John B. Toews of Calgary on the Mennonite intellectual world from which theM B Church and P.M. Friesen both emerged; the second by David Rempel on the influence of economic and social structures on the religious life of the Russian Mennonites between 1840 and 1870. Without looking at the problem of origins directly, they were to set the stage for the events that transpired during those crucial thirty years. But due to ill health, Professor Rempel was subsequently unable to prepare and present his paper. The symposium was, and this volume is, the poorer for it, especially in light of the lengthy letter sent by Professor Rempel to the editor accepting the assignment and laying out in extenso his preliminary views on the topic. The second group of essays deals with kinship patterns and leadership among the founding fathers of the M.B. Church and raises some intriguing questions. Based on the extensive genealogical research of Alan Peters, the first essay calls us to consider an aspect of the origins of the M .B. Church seldom if ever broached before, and certainly_ not given any consideration by Friesen. The seconsl essay deals with Johann Claassen, without a doubt the most important single personality amongst the founding fathers. Based upon a book by the same name just recently published, this short biographical sketch reminds us of the importance of individuals in the birth of any movement, but especially in that of the early M.B. Church. xi: The third section is devoted to Friesen the historian as well as more directly to one of the central issues raised by his study: the question of the origins of the Mennonite Brethren Church. Needless to say, every historian, no matter how hard he attempts to remain objective, or as Friesen put it, "to write truth as the Bible did of David", puts a little of himself into his work. These essays, therefore, seek to help us understand Friesen's history better by illuminating the man and his presupposition, his style and the problems he confronted as well as the central issue he dealt with. In the final part the authors attempt to use Friesen to help us understand ourselves better in the present.
Recommended publications
  • Journal of Mennonite Studies 34 (2016)
    338 Journal of Mennonite Studies David L. Weaver-Zercher, Martyrs Mirror: A Social History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, Young Center Books in Anabaptist & Pietist Studies, 2016. Pp. xvii+414. Hardcover, $49.95 USD. One of the hallmarks of Mennonite history and identity is suf- fering. Mennonites have valorized suffering across the ages in tales of martyrs, migrants, conscientious objectors, and of victims of persecutions of many stripes. Of particular staying power within Mennonite and Anabaptist circles is the monumental Martyrs Mir- ror, and in particular the iconic image of Dirk Willems. David Weaver-Zercher in his book, Martyrs Mirror: A Social History, has provided a timely and invigorating exploration of the history of Martyrs Mirror. Though his thesis is self-described as “straight- forward,” in that Martyrs Mirror functioned and still functions “as a measure of Christian faithfulness” (x). The stories of martyrs thus are much more than heroic tales, rather, they play a pedagog- ical role in transmitting the model answer to one of the key reformation questions, how to live the Christian life. For Mennon- ites and Anabaptists, martyrs exemplified “spiritual resolve” and “the content of authentic faith” (x). As straightforward a thesis it is, Weaver-Zercher has written an intricate and sophisticated history of a book, its reception, and the role it played for a religious people centuries and continents re- moved from its seventeenth-century authorship. If the book has largely remained the same, the reading of it has not. To approach the subject, Weaver-Zercher divided his book into three parts each with four chapters.
    [Show full text]
  • A Study of Early Anabaptism As Minority Religion in German Fiction
    Heresy or Ideal Society? A Study of Early Anabaptism as Minority Religion in German Fiction DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Ursula Berit Jany Graduate Program in Germanic Languages and Literatures The Ohio State University 2013 Dissertation Committee: Professor Barbara Becker-Cantarino, Advisor Professor Katra A. Byram Professor Anna Grotans Copyright by Ursula Berit Jany 2013 Abstract Anabaptism, a radical reform movement originating during the sixteenth-century European Reformation, sought to attain discipleship to Christ by a separation from the religious and worldly powers of early modern society. In my critical reading of the movement’s representations in German fiction dating from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, I explore how authors have fictionalized the religious minority, its commitment to particular theological and ethical aspects, its separation from society, and its experience of persecution. As part of my analysis, I trace the early historical development of the group and take inventory of its chief characteristics to observe which of these aspects are selected for portrayal in fictional texts. Within this research framework, my study investigates which social and religious principles drawn from historical accounts and sources influence the minority’s image as an ideal society, on the one hand, and its stigmatization as a heretical and seditious sect, on the other. As a result of this analysis, my study reveals authors’ underlying programmatic aims and ideological convictions cloaked by their literary articulations of conflict-laden encounters between society and the religious minority.
    [Show full text]
  • The Roots of Anabaptist Empathetic Solidarity, Nonviolent Advocacy, and Peacemaking
    The Roots of Anabaptist Empathetic Solidarity, Nonviolent Advocacy, and Peacemaking John Derksen Introduction uch of Mennonite nonviolent advocacy and peacebuild- ing today finds its roots in sixteenth-century Anabaptism. But Msixteenth-century Anabaptists were diverse. In keeping with the polygenesis viewSAMPLE of Anabaptist origins, this paper assumes diversity in the geography, origins, cultures, shaping influences, spiritual orientations, attitudes to violence, and other expressions of Anabaptists.1 We define Anabaptists as those who accepted (re)baptism or believer’s baptism and the implications of that choice. Various Anabaptists had sectarian, ascetic, spiri- tualist, social revolutionary, apocalyptic, rationalistic, or other orientations, and the distinctions between them were often blurred. Geographically, they emerged in Switzerland in 1525, in South Germany-Austria in 1526, and in the Netherlands in 1530. Many agree that the Anabaptists displayed 1. Stayer, Packull, and Deppermann, “Monogenesis,” 83–121; Coggins, “Defini- tion”; Stayer, Sword. Surveys of Anabaptist history that incorporate the polygenesis perspective include Snyder, Anabaptist, and Weaver, Becoming Anabaptist. Works that explore Anabaptist unity beyond polygenesis include Weaver, Becoming Anabaptist, and Roth and Stayer, Companion. 13 © 2016 The Lutterworth Press 14 Historical Conditions of Anabaptist-Mennonite Peacebuilding Approaches both Protestant and Catholic characteristics in different configurations. “Negatively, there was anger against social, economic, and religious abuses . but responses to this discontent varied widely. Positively, the ‘Word of God’ served as a rallying point for all, but differences . emerged over how it was understood and used.”2 While Swiss Anabaptists tended to fa- vor sectarianism after the 1525 Peasants’ War, South German and Austrian Anabaptists tended more toward spiritualism, and early Dutch Anabaptists tended toward apocalyptic thinking.
    [Show full text]
  • Apology and Forgiveness Among Anabaptists, Lutherans
    Winter 2012 | vol 21, no 2 apology and Remembering in a new way: Embracing forgiveness forgiveness among Anabaptists, Lutherans and by Larry Miller Catholics | by Rachel Nafziger Hartzler Hans and his wife, Ursula, are from Germany and were not like “God can re-write our story,” said one Amish participant in the most of the visitors that come “Healing of memories” event at Menno-Hof in Shipshewana on through Menno-Hof. Hans is a Jan. 20, 2012. Presenters John Rempel and André Gingerich Lutheran theologian and retired Stoner encouraged the group of about 70 attendees to reconsider professor—Ursula is an educator. the way martyr stories are told in Amish and Mennonite settings. They visited Shipshewana in Oct. Prompted by apologies from the descendants of Christians who 2010 as church enthusiasts. persecuted Anabaptists in the sixteenth and Hans’ interest in different seventeenth centuries, twenty-first century aspects of the Amish and Anabaptists have an opportunity to forgive and Mennonites went beyond the remember in a new way. horse and buggy and disaster Along with the stories of thousands of relief work tags we are often martyrs in the Martyrs Mirror, Menno-Hof has questioned about at Menno-Hof. kept alive the memory of persecutions of early Hans asked me if I knew about Anabaptists. Over the years, many individuals Andreas Karlstadt, a German have apologized after listening to stories in Christian theologian during the Menno-Hof’s “dungeon” room. The following Protestant Reformation also a priest historical proceedings were summarized at the and contemporary of Martin Luther. Jan. 20 event.
    [Show full text]
  • Representations of Melancholic Martyrdom in Canadian Mennonite Literature
    Representations of Melancholic Martyrdom in Canadian Mennonite Literature Grace Kehler, McMaster University In a recent essay, the Mennonite poet and scholar Di Brandt muses on the long history of violence in her culture, a history redolent with and bound to externally and internally imposed martyrdoms: There was another memory… an older memory of a time… before the persecutions, the Inquisition, the Burning Times, the drowning times, the hanging times, before we became transients, exiles, hounded from one country to the next… Before the violence of the persecutions got internalized in our psyches and we began inflicting them on each other, the same violent subjugations of body and spirit the Inquisitors visited upon us. (So this is the world, 3) Audrey Poetker-Thiessen’s poetry collection standing all the night through also bears eloquent, graphic witness to the fatal psychosomatic grip of persecution on the sensibilities of the Manitoba Russian Men- nonites. In Low German (Plautdietsch), she laments that 168 Journal of Mennonite Studies Ons wajch es root Met bloot naut Von trohne betta En soltich ons Noh hüs es emma Wiet wajch (42)1 Our way (“wajch”) is bloody (“bloot”) and tear-streaked (“trohne”); home (hüs), heaven, is far away (“wiet wajch”). The blood and tears attest to the brutal deaths that Anabaptists and Mennonites endured in the Netherlands and Russia – but, as importantly, the body’s involun- tary seepages attest to the trauma of subsequent diasporic rootlessness and to a deep unease about how to negotiate the “tension between
    [Show full text]
  • Confessional Migration: Anabaptists – Mennonites, Hutterites, Baptists Etc
    Confessional Migration: Anabaptists – Mennonites, Hutterites, Baptists etc. by Geoffrey Dipple Lacking a durable alliance with the state anywhere in Europe, Anabaptists constituted one of the most persecuted and most mobile religious populations of the Reformation and Confessional Ages. A single, clearly defined magisterial office was also absent from the movement, and the Anabaptists' migratory experience encouraged regional variations in the movement that built on its distinct starting points and traditions. At the same time, interactions between different Anabaptist groups undermined those regional differences. The result was the formation of distinct yet inter‐related traditions that survived the Confessional Age: Mennonites, Swiss Brethren, Amish, and Hutterites. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. Confessional Migrants 1. The Beginnings in Switzerland and South Germany 2. Moravia: The Promised Land 3. North German and Dutch Anabaptism 3. Migration and the Formation of Anabaptist Traditions 4. Communication Processes 5. Conclusion 6. Appendix 1. Sources 2. Literature 3. Notes Indices Citation Introduction In many ways, Anabaptists were the quintessential confessional migrants of early modern Europe. Driven by a combination of missionary zeal and persecution, they established communities across Europe, ultimately migrating to Russia and the Americas. Perceiving themselves to be the true church in a hostile world, they usually tried to isolate themselves from the surrounding society and culture. Nonetheless, both forced and voluntary migration put Anabaptists into situations in which they had to adapt their teachings and institutions to new conditions. However, determining what developments in Anabaptist history are the result of their migratory existence is complicated by the fact that we are not dealing with a homogeneous, clearly demarcated confessional group.
    [Show full text]
  • Brethren to America: Alexander Mack, Jr. (1712–1802) and the Poetic Imagination of a Pilgrim People
    Brethren to America: Alexander Mack, Jr. (1712–1802) and the Poetic Imagination of a Pilgrim People Jason Barnhart In 1784, Alexander Mack, Jr., known as “Sander,” penned a poem in response to the death of his friend Christopher Sauer II (1721–1784). Entitled “Nun bricht der Hütten Haus entzwei” (“Now Breaks the Cottage House in Half”), the poem details the final stages of a person’s transition into eternity: Now breaks this house of earth in twain, now the body can decay; the pilgrimage is now over; now will my spirit recover; the soul has now won the fight; my Jesus has overcome the enemy. To Him alone be the honor. Now I will enter into Jesus who died for me. He has won through pain and death a refuge for my soul. He has prepared for me a better house in Heaven that I may praise Him in it forever and ever.1 Christopher Sauer II—Mack’s beloved friend, confidant, and brother in Christ—had finished his pilgrimage on earth, and the conclusion of that jour- ney was not mere death but the sweet embrace of Christ Jesus. In German, the description is all the more personal as the phrase Pilger Reise, translated “pilgrimage,” literally means “pilgrim’s travel.” Jason Barnhart is Director of Brethren Research and Resourcing for the Brethren Church National Office (Ashland, Ohio). 1 Samuel Heckman, ed., The Religious Poetry of Alexander Mack, Jr. (Elgin, IL: Brethren Publishing House, 1912), 43, 45. Anabaptist Witness 6.2 (Dec 2019) 11 12 | Anabaptist Witness Even in moments of profound grief, Mack’s poetry alludes to a “spiritual vision [of a] true homeland beyond the horizon of this world.”2 Poetic reflections like this capture an inward and outward pilgrimage that marked the lives of colonial Brethren in the new world.
    [Show full text]
  • In Search of the Global Anabaptist Church
    2012 BECHTEL LECTURES “Blest Be the Ties That Bind”: In Search of the Global Anabaptist Church Lecture One The Challenge of Church Unity in the Anabaptist Tradition John D. Roth Introduction On January 26, 1531, veteran Swiss Brethren missionary Wilhelm Reublin addressed a long letter to his friend and co-worker Pilgram Marpeck. “You should know,” Reublin wrote regarding the community at Austerlitz, Moravia he had recently visited, “that I have been badly deceived in regards to the Brotherhood.” To his dismay, Reublin had discovered that the elders there were “false deceivers, untrue in doctrine, life and work in each and every point.” Marpeck agreed. After several failed attempts to heal the growing rift, he gave up in frustration, angrily claiming that he would “rather unite with the Turks and the Pope.”1 Although scholars today are accustomed to thinking of the Hutterites and the Swiss Brethren as two distinct traditions within the Anabaptist family, nothing at the time suggested that the division between these two groups was inevitable. After all, both shared theological roots going back to Zurich and the Grebel circle; the first Church Discipline of the Hutterites was based explicitly on the earliest Swiss congregational order; and the Hutterian emphasis on community of goods was clearly an extension—not a rejection—of the Swiss Anabaptist commitment to radical mutual aid. Nevertheless, within a few short years an identity of opposition had crystallized in both groups. In 1543, for example, Hans Klöpfer of Feuerbach reported that he left the Swiss Brethren because they had abandoned true Christian community, paid war taxes, and had a confused leadership 1 Cf.
    [Show full text]
  • Dying for What Faith
    Dying For What Faith: Martyrologies to Dying For What Faith: Martyrologies to Inspire and Heal or to Foster Christian Division? Inspire and Heal or to Foster Christian Division? Walter Sawatsky Walter Sawatsky Mennonites have gained a reputation for generosity to the poor, the marginalized, Mennonites have gained a reputation for generosity to the poor, the marginalized, and the persecuted because theirs is a story of suffering. What has become and the persecuted because theirs is a story of suffering. What has become increasingly apparent when listening to recent appeals to that story of suffering increasingly apparent when listening to recent appeals to that story of suffering is the quite narrow and idealized reference to Anabaptist martyrs, whose witness is the quite narrow and idealized reference to Anabaptist martyrs, whose witness to Christ should teach us and should provide the basis for a renewal movement. to Christ should teach us and should provide the basis for a renewal movement. True, there is some notion that Russian Mennonites suffered under True, there is some notion that Russian Mennonites suffered under Communism; after all, those who escaped have been very generous donors to Communism; after all, those who escaped have been very generous donors to Mennonite Central Committee relief programs. But Mennonite martyrdom in Mennonite Central Committee relief programs. But Mennonite martyrdom in the Soviet Union remains mostly unknown to contemporary North American the Soviet Union remains mostly unknown to contemporary North American Mennonites or is often viewed with suspicion as a deserved divine judgment Mennonites or is often viewed with suspicion as a deserved divine judgment for earlier unfaithfulness.
    [Show full text]
  • “By the Hand of a Woman”: Gender, Nationalism, and the Origins of Mennonite History Writing
    “By the Hand of a Woman”: Gender, Nationalism, and the Origins of Mennonite History Writing BENJAMIN W. GOOSSEN* Abstract: Seeking to fuse militarist German nationalism with contemporaneous efforts to unite Mennonite congregations across newly established Imperial Germany, the historian Antje Brons published a book in 1884 entitled Origins, Development, and Fate of the Anabaptists or Mennonites: A Brief Outline Neatly Sketched by the Hand of a Woman. Mennonite churchmen and publishers from across the theological spectrum immediately lauded her volume as the first comprehensive history of Anabaptism. Analyzing Brons’s text and its reception in Europe and North America, this article shows how the author combined traditionalist expectations about gender propriety with liberal nationalist thought in order to construct a work intended to help build denominational cohesion at home and abroad, particularly via topics of Reformation-era martyrdom, European ethnicity, and military service. The substantial impact of Brons and her book on the emergence of Mennonite historiography within a German nationalist mold makes the recovery and deconstruction of her legacy imperative. Antje Brons was the most widely read Mennonite woman of the nineteenth century. With the exception of some sixteenth-century hymnists—whose words still appear in the Ausbund and Martyrs Mirror— she may have been the most widely read Mennonite woman of the first 400 years of Mennonite history.1 Born in 1810 in the city of Norden, a coastal town in what is today the northwestern part of Germany, Antje Cremer ten Doornkaat grew up surrounded by wealthy, intellectual *Benjamin W. Goossen is a PhD student in history at Harvard University.
    [Show full text]
  • Layers of Meaning: Intertextuality in Early Anabaptist Song
    Layers of Meaning: Intertextuality in Early Anabaptist Song A thesis submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF MUSIC in the Composition, Musicology, and Theory Division of the College-Conservatory of Music Music History by Scott R. Troyer B.A., Bluffton University, 2013 Committee Chair: Stephanie P. Schlagel, Ph.D. Abstract Anabaptism is one of the smaller, less well-known movements of the sixteenth-century Reformation. Very little musicological research regarding this separatist group has been done, partly due to their small size, lack of engagement in the contemporary religiopolitical landscape, and the near non-existence of musical notation within the movement’s musical repertoire. The largest extant collection from the first half-century of Anabaptism, Etliche Schöne Christliche Geseng/wie sie in der Gefengkniß zu Passaw im Schloß von den Schweitzer Brüdern durch Gottes gnad geticht und gesungen worden, was published anonymously in 1564 and expanded in 1583 with the additional title of “Ausbund, das ist.” The collection is comprised entirely of contrafacts. Scholars have identified the origins of most of the source tunes that Etliche Geseng references, though they have not frequently considered the relationships that exist between models and contrafacts aside from shared melodies. Expanding on Rebecca Wagner Oettinger’s categories of intertextual relationships as presented in her book Music as Propaganda in the German Reformation, one is able to gain insight into the musical lives and cultural awareness of the Etliche Geseng authors. Patterns identified through the study of intertextual relationships even have the potential to indicate the origins and perhaps even the subject matter of model songs that are no longer extant.
    [Show full text]
  • 16Th Century Anabaptist Martyrdom As Resistance to Violent Spectacle
    Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies Vol. 5, No. 3, September 2009 The Stage and the Stake: 16th Century Anabaptist Martyrdom as Resistance to Violent Spectacle W. Benjamin Myers Using Dwight Conquergood’s description of execution as performance and Elaine Scarry’s explanation of the ideology of pain in the torture process, this essay explores how the Anabaptist Reformation martyrs resisted violent and ideologically charged state sanctioned performances of pain and death. By publicly performing heresy, claiming the stake as their own stage, and scripting and ritualizing public undisciplined bodies, these martyrs performed resistance to the social order that those who oversaw violent spectacle intended to preserve. This essay also examines the process of collecting and retelling martyr stories to guide performance studies scholars to challenge hegemonic sacrifices in contemporary culture. In 1571 Anneken Heyndricks was convicted by authorities in Amsterdam of renouncing the Catholic Church, being baptized as an adult, carrying heresy in her heart, belonging to a group of Anabaptists and marrying an Anabaptist. As she was arrested she thanked Jesus that she was worthy to suffer for his name. She was tortured and asked to recant, a request she refused. The bailiff then declared, “…you must die in your sins, so far are you strayed from God” (Braght 872). Her persecutors proceeded to torture her to extort the names of fellow believers “for they thirsted for more innocent blood. But they obtained nothing from Anneken, so faithfully did God keep her lips” (872). After extensive torture her mouth was filled with gunpowder, her hands bound together and her feet and torso tied to a ladder.
    [Show full text]